ACCORDING TO A SURVEY OF 3,100 MEMBERS OF THE INFORMATION SYSTEMS AUDIT AND CONTROL ASSOCIATION, regulatory compliance will be the leading business and technology issue facing IT managers worldwide in the next 12 to 18 months.
ISACA identified 21 current business issues impacted by technology that face IT managers and executives, and asked respondents to rank them according to priority. According to respondents, the top seven issues these groups will face over the next year and a half are, in order:
1. Regulatory compliance, specifically protecting personal information and implementing transaction monitoring,
2. Enterprise-based management and IT governance,
3. Information security management,
4. Disaster recovery/business continuity,
5. IT value management,
6. Challenges of managing IT risks,
7. Compliance with financial reporting.
ISACA Assurance Committee member and vice president of IT audit at Viacom, Anthony Noble, said keeping on top of legislative and regulatory requirements is a critical responsibility made more difficult because compliance efforts are still operating in “project” mode and have not yet been embedded into business processes.
“IT projects still lack alignment with business objectives at many organizations, and as a result, they are unable to realize business benefits,” he said.
According to the survey, IT must design and maintain systems to comply with these legislative and regulatory requirements.